HARP

For Phyllis Diebenkorn

When you pasted paper on paper
did your blue tattoo conclude
the hunt for melody? I was
engendered by your dominant
crayon. Rusty themes in
diagonals cut through all my
misnomers for composition.
I cried and cried with the bassoons.
Yellow greens on linen pulled
my ears from piccolo to constellation.
In the acrylic encore, I pushed
colleagues off the stage to condemn
the single chime. But the percussion’s
flesh tones revived me after each one
of your solos. The arrow pinned
my gauze to your gouache.
Why are we prey to ether’s whims?
Draw me a triangle from your
blurred crescendo to my cobalt spill.
My accidental diva, my acoustic
untitled hypnotic premier.

Richard DiebenkornUntitled, c. 1992

Sex At Noon Taxes

From the ghost town’s
fencepost, my lariat ropes
your palindromic peak
and hauls it to our bedroom,
where the timbers arch to hold off
the mountain’s hooves --- no
avalanche turns snowfall into
uncorraled horseshoes.
The steeds bear us upslope.
We reach the muddy cleft
between Maroon Bells
and Crested Butte, gnawing
on caribou and warmed
liver of once noble elk.